


Angel Sighting

by 0Rocky41_7



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:30:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Rocky41_7/pseuds/0Rocky41_7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven year old Ivan Braginsky knows he's seen an angel at the school concert. There's simply no other explanation for it; he just wonders how he hadn't noticed her before. RusAme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angel Sighting

Ivan was seven years old the first time he was sure he’d seen an angel. In fact, he realized that the angel had been in his presence for quite some time, he’d just never noticed.

                It all began with the school Christmas concert. Ivan, who lived in a town in upstate New York with his father and two sisters, attended a private Catholic school, despite the fact that he and his family were Russian Orthodox. The school was inarguably the best and the safest in the town, so there Ivan went. Natalia was too young to be in school yet and Yekaterina was in fifth grade, three grades above Ivan.

                To summarize Ivan’s home life, it was not good. The boy often came to school with bruises or abrasions, though they could be hidden under the thick clothing he wore year round, regardless of the temperature. His mother’s death shortly after Natalia’s birth had rendered his father either incapable or unwilling to love his three children. Ivan couldn’t really say whether his mother’s death was the thing that had been a turning point, or if his father had always been cold and distant. He’d asked Yekaterina, as he asked her about their mother, but it always made her cry and then Ivan felt bad, so he’d begun to ask less and less often.

                Thusly, it was with a great amount of timidity that Yekaterina had approached their father about performing in the concert. She had been taking piano lessons for some time and wanted very much to play a piece in the concert for Christmas. After a few tense moments of contemplative silence, Mr. Braginsky agreed and Yekaterina breathed a sigh of relief, repeatedly thanking her father before running off to call her piano teacher and tell her.

                Ivan hadn’t thought much of it at the time; he’d been busy playing with Natalia. The little girl loved dolls and things, so Ivan often got roped into playing with them. Mr. Braginsky didn’t like it one bit; he didn’t want his son turning out to be a sissy and this was something Ivan heard often. But it had been sometime since he’d seen them play together (they did so far more often in private) so he settled for a displeased look before returning to his work.

                Natalia and Ivan did a great many things their father didn’t approve of, in fact, most of which Ivan had discovered the hard way his father disliked. For example, braiding Natalia’s hair. He had gotten quite good at it, but all it had gotten him from his father was a nice tirade and being sent out to scrub the driveway in November. So while Natalia and Ivan never directly disobeyed the man, they did have their secrets. The unfortunate part was that in their youth, they were still learning how to best keep these.

                In the weeks leading up to the concert, Yekaterina was often away, practicing extra with her piano teacher in preparation. It made Ivan happy, to see her so excited about something. She deserved to have something to give her joy; the young boy was loath to see his beloved big sister downtrodden as she often was in their house. Natalia seemed displeased, but then, the small girl often seemed displeased. In fact, the more time passed, the more it seemed that Ivan was the only one able to make her smile. For whatever reasons, she was nowhere near as close to Yekaterina as she was to her frequent playmate Ivan, despite their being the only two girls in the house.

                Natalia confided confidently to Ivan one day that “she could do that too”. He agreed that Natalia would be able to play beautifully, but she eyed him suspiciously nonetheless. She was paranoid about being patronized; once she’d been left at daycare and when she complained about her ugly drawing, the teacher had cooed that no, it was wonderful and wasn’t she a great artist? Natalia had thrown a tantrum over “being lied to” and “told she was wrong”. They’d only been able to get her to stop screaming when Mr. Braginsky showed up to pick her up; one frigid look from him and silenced her right up.

                But fortunately she didn’t press the issue today and went on dressing her doll and telling Ivan about all the terrible things that had happened to the doll’s parents, leaving her the rejected heir of a tiny mountain kingdom. Ivan had to be impressed with her creativity, even if her story was rather dark. Now it was his job to play the prince of a neighboring kingdom who found the reject princess and bring her back to his kingdom where her true identity is discovered and her kingdom restored. It was certain to keep them busy the rest of the afternoon.

                At school, those participating in the concert spoke frequently of it. Of the second graders, this group included the musical prodigy Roderich Edelstein, Lili Zwingli, Im Yong Soo and the twins, Amelia and Matthew. Ivan watched them sometimes from his corner of the sandbox; when they played, Amelia seemed to be the ringleader, always devising new and interesting games for them to play and switching it up when they got bored. Ivan wanted very much to join them, but he was never invited. Of course, sometimes Matthew was left out too just because he was such a wallflower, people looked right over him. But he was welcome to play. Ivan got the sense he was not. Too strange. At least, that’s what Gilbert Beilschmidt had told him when he beat him up the first time.

                It was too cold, the nuns had said, to have water from the faucet, so Ivan had nothing to stick his sand together and mostly ended up picking up shovelfuls of it and watching it fall back into the box. It wasn’t very exciting. Mostly he watched the others play. Roderich didn’t play with them though, he sat off to one side, reading a book. Once in a while Elizabeta would do something to him, like kick a bouncy ball at his head and they’d have a short argument before her scathing tongue sent him back to his overturned bucket to keep reading and hope she’d ignore him for the rest of recess. It seldom worked, unless she was busy getting in another fight with the third grader Gilbert.

                Once or twice Ivan had thought that maybe Roderich wanted someone to play with too and had tried to talk to him, but as it turned out, the high-strung boy was very adamant about just reading his book. Although he did seem a bit wary about turning Ivan down; the Russian boy didn’t seem to realize the aura he gave off that subtly warned his classmates away from him.

                But the bell was ringing now, bringing Ivan’s contemplations to an end. He wasn’t too upset by this.

                Later that night was the concert. Much to the three children’s delight, Mr. Braginsky announced they were all going to see Yekaterina play and that they should go clean up now and put on their best clothes. They hastened to do so, Yekaterina pausing to put Ivan’s bowtie on before continuing on to fix up her hair. Natalia stood out amongst the three Braginsky children quite obviously. With her doll-like face and figure, her slight shape and delicate features, she was like a painting come to life. Her elegant movements and love of old-fashioned dresses and ribbons brought it all around so that she might’ve been one of the beautiful ballerinas the three liked to watch on TV. She’d grow up to be a beauty, the  neighbors said. Natalia never acknowledged such comments (Or that fact that they were never made about Yekaterina or Ivan), but she did straighten up a bit more.

                They all piled into the car and drove off to the school, snow drifting down from the sky to give the school a much more magical look in the dark than it had ever possessed in daylight. Their feet crunched lightly on the freshly fallen snow as they walked into the school, shrugging off hats and coats. They took their seats and on went the concert.

                Yekaterina played “O Come All Ye Faithful” and actually did a nice job; her piano teacher sitting in the front row clapped loudly as the blushing girl curtsied and hurried off stage. Matthew played the cello and did some number Ivan didn’t recognize, but it sounded nice. If he made any mistakes, Ivan couldn’t tell. Im Yong Soo played the Seul and was trying to do “Jingle Bells” but he really was terrible and started to break into laughter towards the end. As he exited the stage, his brother Yao, who was in seventh grade (A middle schooler!) grabbed his ear and hauled him off, already berating him in Chinese. Roderich was the best by far, shocking the audience with the extraordinary skill coming from one so young and made the rest of the concert as good as moot.

                At least, Ivan thought so, until little blonde Amelia opened her mouth. She was singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. She walked up to the mic wearing a little red dress with a white bow, the ends of her hair neatly curled for the occasion. She began quietly but as her voice grew louder, the clarity of it startled Ivan. He perked up, listening more carefully. He was quite sure he’d never heard such a beautiful voice before in his life.

                The more he began to admire her voice, the more he began to notice other things about her, like the shine on her glossy hair and the sparkle in her lovely blue eyes. But that voice, that voice! Ivan’s mouth opened slightly in awe, his eyes fixed on her. She was so emotive…it was as though she really did know the pain of being away from her loved ones for Christmas.

Someone had put blush on her cheeks, so that the light of the stage didn’t wash her out. But then, her cheeks were always rosy, weren’t they? He thought so. Looking closer, he could see that she was missing one of her bottom teeth, but he found it only more endearing.  He was so enraptured, he didn’t realize she’d finished at first, until the applause sounded. Amelia gave a charming little smile, the mischievous look ever present in her face, curtsied, and then trotted off backstage.  

Ivan didn’t hear Lili perform, or any of the older students; he spent the rest of the evening in a stupor about the little angel in his class; because of course she had to be. How else could she be so pretty and sound so incredible?

                He remained in this dazed state as everyone rose to their feet and bustled out towards their cars. For a heartbeat, he saw her standing beside her mother and their eyes met for a moment or two. She was raising her hand in a tentative wave as Ivan’s father pushed him forward and he realized his chance to speak with her had blown right by.

                The rest of the evening was quiet and the siblings went off to bed. Ivan lay in his bed that night, looking at the starry sky outside. Yekaterina tiptoed into his room to set a glass of water on his bedside table. She reached out to stroke his hair and he spoke softly, startling her.

                “Syestra…today I saw an angel,” he said.

                “Oh?” Yekaterina sat on the edge of his bed.

                “Da.” He nodded slowly, his eyes still fixed on the stars. “How is it she is here, on Earth?”

                “Sometimes God sends us special people,” Yekaterina said, patting her brother’s arm. “They’re to help us in times of need. To bring more light into our lives.” She smiled at him. For the first time, he turned his gaze on her.

                “You think that is why?” he asked, a note of hope entering his voice. Yekaterina nodded.

                “Da, I think it might be. You should go talk to her,” she said.

                “Talk to her…” Ivan echoed. “Da, I should go talk to her…” Yekaterina gave his head one last pat and rose to her feet.

                “Good night, little brother,” she said, pausing in the door way. “Sleep tight!”

                Ivan privately made up his mind never to speak to Amelia. Because she might not like him and he thought that if that happened, he might just die. Right there, on the spot. But now he could just watch her from the sandbox and his seat in the fifth spot, third row in the classroom and let her light shine on him that way. That would be enough.  


End file.
